It’s a cool but fairly nice night but I see the clouds pushing in and the forecast man says rain by 6 AM or maybe sooner — I occasionally felt what seemed like a drop of rain or two out hiking at Kehler Preserve and now as I sit out back. I prefer any night in the wilderness to a night in the city, but hammock camping in the rain doesn’t sound like much fun.
Visiting the Gas Up Was Fun Today
I am undecided about next weekend, but I might go back to the Gas Up, camp in Schoharie County — maybe hammock camp or maybe truck cap camp at Betty Brook or one of the other campsites at Burnt-Rossman. I wouldn’t mind spending more time at the Gas Up without my dad, so I could spend more time observing the exhibits. I am a bit undecided. Or I could go back to Vermont if it seems like I need to work and need good cell reception — Prospect Mountain Road camping intrigues me. If I don’t get out next week, then it will likely be I do a three-day weekend the first weekend of summer at Piseco-Powley / Potholers.
Happy Gas Up Day! 🚜
Hoping for some nice weather day. It started out bright and sunny but clouds have pushed in. Hoping it will clear out before me and dad go to the Gas Up Tractor Festival in Gallupville later this morning. Figured this would be the best day, as it’s expected to be relatively cool and somewhat sunny, though lately it seems like a bunch of clouds have pushed in.
Yesterday was was quite the day, 😫 after I switched some of the robo calls to the new robo system, and the network couldn’t take the bandwidth, despite all the of testing of the system I did in advance. Turned out with the end of session ongoing, the network didn’t have enough capacity. 📶 Ended up staying a little late and running the robo into the evening, monitoring it remotely over the VPN. It was fine, I took the local bus home 🚍️ and brought my laptop home to work, as I didn’t want to get caught in the rain. Left the speedometer on my bike yesterday and it got soaked in a surprise downpour, ⛈️ hoping it will dryh out soon.
Definately not missing the craziness of Capitol Hill 🏫 it was nice sleeping in my own bed and getting to bed around 9 PM rather then pulling an all nighter for the final day of session. Even if things were kind of crazy yesterday around the office. It was my fault, I shouldn’t have moved that one job onto the new system, even if it tested out perfectly and was good until the network was overloaded with the legislative session and phones running full blast. I couldn’t have predicted it. 🖱️The one thing I’ve learned at head of Data Services is that computers regularly fail. All your cleverness and work with even smarter technicians can’t overcome when the servers break down.
Uploaded some new maps to the blog, 🗺️ and have been working on some various improvements now that the “fast photo” uploader is done. Works great, will be good for uploading all kinds of photos and content to the blog in the coming weeks, especially as I travel more in the summer. 🖼️ I am trying to do more maps and updating more content, I’ve been busy lately but I have more to add it seems with summer getting underway. Seems like most things have been restored on my computer, though I’ve had issues with QGIS crashing while making maps. I think some of it might be how I’m using the overlay_intersection to filter features — along with ArcGIS REST/Services causing slow performance. 🐢
Tomorrow will be a shopping day, 🛒 with rain expected in the morning. 🧹 A good day to do some cleaning, and then I can go for a ride in the evening as it’s expected to clear out. Maybe out to Voorheesville and or Altamont. And do some reading. 📚️ Visiting with Mom and Dad today after the Gas Up, so I won’t have to go out there tomorrow. 🍔
Who knows about next week, but it looks like it might be hot for the weekend. ☀️ Not sure with work if I’ll be able to get away for the Potholers as there may be targets to cut especially during the second half of the week. I did like the Prospect Mountain Road in Vermont, but there is no swimming holes nearby but it would be cool up in the woods and I do have good cell service up there. 📲 So remote work is definitely possible from there. It looks like Mine Kill State Park won’t be opening next week or even the following week but not until June 29th, so in the mean time if I want to swim, I’m going to have to find a swimming hole like the Potholers. Kind of thinking of taking off June 21st – 23rd to do the Potholers, 🏊♂️sucks that Juneteenth is a Wednesday. I could work on Thursday, and leave straight from the office though. All depends on hot and sunny it is. Juneteenth not only is a State Holiday but I also have a Save the Pine Bush meeting in the afternoon. 🌲
I wish people would cut the crap about saving democracy 💩
Really folks, really!
2024 will be an election year. So will 2026 and 2028. Either Joe Biden or Donald Trump will win in 2024 most likely, and either the Democrats or Republicans will control the US House and Senate. An election will determine that this year, and another election will determine that in 2026 and 2028. Both Biden and Trump are term limited in 2028, and even if they somehow could get away with ignoring the constitution, their advance age will send them packing not long beyond that.
Do I have faith in the politicians to not try to tweak the rules so their favored party wins extraordinarily close election? Of course, not. I’ve been around Albany along enough to not be that stupid. But extraordinarily close elections are as much a coin toss as anything else. Storm clouds, a car with a dead battery, a phone call to one’s niece can often determine close elections. Or a clever intrepration of election law, or how the existing law puts a finger on the scale on who wins the election. Really when the election is that close, it doesn’t matter who ends up winning, because essentially the winning candidate reflects either majority sentiment or close to majority sentiment. The next go-around, things might be different.
While in a pure discussion of fairness, you can say a candidate who has 48% popular support winning over the candidate 52% popular support is anti-Democratic. But regardless of who is chosen, virtually the same the number of people will have backed the winner and loser. It’s a rounding error. If the 52% view can’t win under the enacted rules, then they’ll just have to win over a few more supporters, so they get 54% or maybe 56% so they win the election. And then they can play around with the rules, to tilt the election rules more in their favor.
Almost hit a goose heading in this morning 🦆
Usually they aren’t do freaken dumb that when you approach them with a bicycle on the bike trail they move out of this way. But there was a great flock of them, and I think somebody was feeding them or otherwise causing them to be overly comfortable with humans, and I didn’t slow down enough, and clipped one on the wing. I was shocked — I wasn’t going that fast on a bicycle!
I’m jeaous of your adventures 🏕️
I honestly didn’t think that much of my trip up to Cole Hill State Forest over the weekend.
But somebody said to me, I am jealous of your adventure.
It really wasn’t that much of an adventure, just a quick, inexpensive overnight out to Cole Hill. I was going out to my parents house on Sunday, so it was only a little out of way, and I figured it would be a nice adventure. Maybe I should cherish the little things in life, but I really don’t because it’s not a particularly noteworthy trip, just a quick night in the hammock, decided mostly while I was at Thacher Park earlier in the day.
Jealousy is something I think about a lot these days. While one shouldn’t covert what others have, it’s hard not to compare yourself to others. It seems like other people always have all the nice toys, go on the nice adventures. Mine are relatively simple, I have that run-down apartment, that old jacked up truck, a mountain bike, and a lot of equipment that is wearing out or is junk. A lot of people have kids and families, go exotic places, see great things. I do relatively simple trips, things often not that far from home. I wish I owned my own land, had acreage, ATVs and other toys. But I don’t.
![Untitled [Expires June 6 2024]](https://andyarthur.org//data/photo_013762_large.jpg)
Why I’m dimming the lights earlier
Increasingly on clear nights I’ve been killing the lights earlier after dusk then the past in favor of being able to see the stars better and enjoying the laser lightening bug light show that I have that puts pretty ever shifting green dots on the trees.
The truth is when I got the laser lightening bug show I was concerned about pointing it up towards the tree branches with all those sensational news stories about the laser Christmas lights blinding pilots. So I did some of my own fact based research on the topic and also tried shining the lights at distant hill tops and I found very little light traveled beyond 500 feet. Maybe problematic next to an airport but not to a plane thousands of feet in the air. I also tend to angle things no more than 30 to 40 degrees.
With the stars up above and the lights elegantly illuminating the tree branches it really is nice. Both the natural beauty above and the artificial beauty looking ahead. It makes for some nice quiet time in the wilderness.